SB 10.14.19-23: One Who Understands the Lord’s Transcendental Birth and Activities is Liberated

Hare Krsna,

Lord Krsna famously declared in BG 4.9, “One who knows the transcendental nature of My appearance and activities does not, upon leaving the body, take his birth again in this material world, but attains My eternal abode, O Arjuna.”

I very much relished the beautiful conversation between Lord Krsna and Lord Brahma in Srila Visvanath Chakravarti Thakura’s commentary on SB 10.14.23. If we can understand and internalize this philosophical discussion, we can humbly state that we know, to some extent, the Supreme Lord’s transcendental appearance and activities. This will make us eligible to cross the ocean of birth and death as Krsna promised in BG 4.9.

For the sake of my own purification and understanding, I would like to reproduce the conversation in a tabular format for ease of reading.

Lord Krsna’s Question	Lord Brahma’s Response	Philosophical Conclusion
	Although You do have infinite forms, You are also present in one transcendental form by Your inconceivable energy. You are the one Supreme Soul, and at the same You expand Yourself as the Supersoul to enter every living being.	The Supreme Lord and His energies are inconceivable. Acintya bheda-abedha tattva: the Supreme Lord is simultaneously one with and different from His creation.
But the Supersoul has no form. He is not a person. After all, the word ‘person’ generally refers to a being that has a form. You say I am a person. Am I a young person?	No, You are the oldest.	BG 8.9: One should meditate upon the Supreme Person as the one who knows everything, as He who is the oldest, who is the controller, who is smaller than the smallest, who is the maintainer of everything, who is beyond all material conception, who is inconceivable, and who is always a person. He is luminous like the sun, and He is transcendental, beyond this material nature.
I am the son of Nanda Baba and I am a young boy of Vraja. It is not right to say that I am the oldest.	“It is true that You are the son of Nanda, but it is also true that You exist eternally in all three phases of time. Therefore You are the oldest person.	aradhyo bhagavan vrajesa-tanayas tad-dhama vrndavanam   It is the conclusive opinion of Lord Chaitanya that the most worshipable form of the Lord is that of Sri Krishna, the son of Nanda Maharaja. Vrindavan-dhäma is the topmost worshipable abode.
The supreme person you describe is the creator of time, karma and everything else. How is it possible that I am He?	Please do not argue. You are self-effulgent.	SB 3.26.3: The Supreme Personality of Godhead is the Supreme Soul, and He has no beginning. He is transcendental to the material modes of nature and beyond the existence of this material world. He is perceivable everywhere because He is self-effulgent, and by His self-effulgent luster the entire creation is maintained.
Am I like the sun, limited within a certain area of space?	No, You are limitless, not restricted by time and space. Your other avataras are also the same.	BG 7.26: O Arjuna, as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, I know everything that has happened in the past, all that is happening in the present, and all things that are yet to come. I also know all living entities; but Me no one knows.
The Supreme has many incarnations, so am I just one of them?	You are the source of all avataras; the root of all incarnations.	SB 1.3.28: All of the above-mentioned incarnations are either plenary portions or portions of the plenary portions of the Lord, but Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa is the original Personality of Godhead.
In the next lifetime of Brahmā will I again incarnate in this form?	No, You are nitya, eternal. Although the universe is ancient, real and eternal, at the end of my lifetime it is no longer manifested in the same form. Because it will disappear, therefore it is anitya, temporary. On the other hand, You will remain eternally in this form as the son of Nanda. Therefore Your form is eternal and unchanging because You are the original Supreme Personality of Godhead. The Vedic literatures confirm this by saying: “Lord Kṛṣṇa is the same Supreme Personality Personality of Godhead who formerly appeared in the Sūrya-vaṁśa [as Lord Rama].” The Gopāla-tāpanī Upaniṣad states: “Lord Kṛṣṇa, whose form is eternal and full of knowledge and bliss, and who sits under a kalpa-vṛkṣa tree in Vṛndāvana forest, is the original Supreme Personality of Godhead.” You Yourself affirm in the Bhagavad-gītā (14.27): ‘I am the basis of the impersonal Brahman.	Brahma Samhita 5.1: Kṛṣṇa who is known as Govinda is the Supreme Godhead. He has an eternal blissful spiritual body. He is the origin of all. He has no other origin and He is the prime cause of all causes.
But those who have bodies are subject to the six transformations,  and are therefore disintegrating at every moment. How is it possible that I am like that?	No, You are not like that. You are unchanging and indestructible.	CC Madhya 21.51: Beyond the river Virajā is the spiritual nature, which is indestructible, eternal, inexhaustible and unlimited. It is the supreme abode, consisting of three fourths of the Lord’s opulences. It is known as paravyoma, the spiritual sky.
Those who have bodies also are subject to happiness and distress.	You are always full of bliss.	Brahma Samhita 5.1: Kṛṣṇa who is known as Govinda is the Supreme Godhead. He has an eternal blissful spiritual body. He is the origin of all. He has no other origin and He is the prime cause of all causes.
But as a child I was greedy to drink My mother’s breast milk and steal the gopīs’ butter and yogurt. As a boy I showed anger toward Kāliya and a host of others. In My teenage years I was lusty to enjoy with the gopīs. Therefore I am impure, and contaminated by lust and a host of other vices.	That is not true. You are spotless. Your so-called lust and other qualities are all pure and spiritual.	SB 1.7.34 Purport: The Lord is Transcendence, and thus He is absolute in any stage. His anger is not like the anger of a conditioned living being within the modes of qualitative material nature.
Still, I am dependent on the gopīs and many others. Because I need them, therefore I am not perfect and complete.	You are perfect and complete. Your being controlled by the prema of Your devotees does not negate Your perfection and completeness.	Sri Isopanisad Invocation: The Personality of Godhead is perfect and complete, and because He is completely perfect, all emanations from Him, such as this phenomenal world, are perfectly equipped as complete wholes. Whatever is produced of the Complete Whole is also complete in itself. Because He is the Complete Whole, even though so many complete units emanate from Him, He remains the complete balance.
Is there someone else like Me?	No one else is like You; You are beyond comparison.
Very well then, because there is no one else like Me, I am therefore the original Supreme Personality of Godhead. Still, many people think I am simply a transformation of transcendental knowledge.	You are not a transformation of transcendental knowledge. The Gopāla-tāpanī Upaniṣad (2.24) states: ‘The Supreme Personality of Godhead is beyond both knowledge and ignorance.’ This is so because You are beyond all limiting designations.	In the Śruti-śāstra it is said: amṛtaṁ śāśvataṁ brahma, ‘The Supreme Personality of Godhead is eternal. He is far beyond any limiting designation.

All glories to Srila Prabhupada!